Edward Sallow
Biography Race: Caucasian Human Sex: Male Role: Founder of Caesar's Legion Born: 2226 Died: 2281 Cause of death: Brain Tumour (Suspected Foulplay) Location of Birth: Boneyard, California Location of Death: Forticiation Hill, Arizona Origins Edward Sallow was born in 2226 as an NCR citizen. When he was two years old, he and his mother fled the Boneyard when raiders killed his father, eventually finding sanctuary with the Followers of the Apocalypse in 2231. He received a free education from the Followers and eventually became a scribe, specializing is anthropology and linguistics. Though he was intelligent and charismatic, the narcissistic and petulant Edward was never very popular among his peers. He did not feel like he belong among the Followers and, in hindsight, consitered their goals to be utterly naive. In 2246 at the age of 20, Sallow, fellow Follower Bill Calhoun, and seven others were sent to the east to study tribal dialects. He was instructed to meet with Joshua Graham, a Mormon missionary and tribal specialist from New Canaan. They embarked on a journey to the region formerly known as Arizona as part of the nine person expedition. Disgusted by the primitive conditions in which the tribals lived, he looked down upon them as inferior and immoral. During this expedition, they discoevered a cache of books about ancient Rome. While he knew some basic facts about ancient history, these books shed newlight on some of the details. Reading sfirs tthe History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and then Julius Caesars's own Commentarii, and personal accounts of his military conquests, these changed his life and were the starting point of his grand plan. Rise to Power At some point in 2247, Sallow, Graham, Calhoun and the others became hostages of the Blackfoot tribe - while Sallow believed the tribe did this for ransom, Graham would later attribute the change in the tribe's relationship with the party to a mistranslation. At the time, the tribe was at war withs even other tribes; they were heavily outnumbered and Sallow recongnized their defeat and subsequent demise was only a matter of time. Unwilling to be destroyed along with them, Sallow chose (against the wishes of his compansions) to use his knowledge to train the Blackfoot tribe in the art of warfare after witnessing their lack of knowledge first hand. He showed them how to clean and maintain guns, operate small unit tactics, manufacture explosive, and to strike at their weakest enemies firstl divide et impera (divide and conquer). He quickly impressed them enough to the point where he was made their leader, taking upon himself the name Caesar. Caesar introduced the tribe to the concept of total war against tribes around them. Sallow knew that, eve though the tribes had always fought each other via occasional skirmishes, he considered them to only be "playing at war," having never seen warfare at it's most destructive and barbaric state. They defeated the weakest of their enemies first and enslaved many of the able-bodied survivors; but Sallow had the rest, including woman and childred killed to the last, leaving their remains piled high. When Sallow surrounded the next of the Blackfoot tribe's foes, they refused to surrender. Sallow brought an emissary of the tribe back to witness the fate of the first tribe. The tribe surrendered rather than suffer the same fate. The concept of total war was entireley new and terrifying type of conflict that the tribes had never encountered before. Such brutality would form the core of the Legion's tatics and Philosophy. Suprisingly, Joshua Graham decided to join Sallow as his right-hand man, in time becoming known as the Malpais Legate. While Calhoun was sent back to the Followers to inform them of what they were doing, the other six members of the exedition were murdered on the self-proclaimed Emperor's orders. The newly-christened Caesar formed his Legion out of the tribes that had either been conquered or had chosen to capitulate to avoid total destruction. He used the Commentarii as a blueprint - after all, which illiterate tribe would know that he was not the original Caesar, and his "Rome" was merely a copy of a civilization long gone? Caesar choice the concept of the Roman Empire as a model for the Legion because of its paralells to what he considered the "status-quo" of the post-apocalyptic world; he believed the concept of individualism had no place is facing the challenges of the wasteland. Ideologically, the Roman Empire also appealed to him for it's ability to assimilate those who it conquered; the destruction of "tribal" identities was a key part of the Legion's long-term strategy for unification. He intended to erase their individual identities and replace them all with a single monolitic culture, The Legion, where individuals had no value outside of what they offer the greater whole. By 2250, Caesar had declared himself the son of Mars, Roman god of war, and five years later he established his first capital in the ruins of Flagstaff. By 2274, he had conquered most of the tribes of northern Arizona, southwestern Colorado, Western New Mexico, and Eastern Utah. He then became known as the "Conqueror of the 86 Tribes," whole Legion had never met any serious defeat untile confrontation with the NCR at the First Battle of Hoover Dam. War with the NCR The Republic has the dubious distrinction of being recognized by Caesar as a worthy adversay. He views his campain against NCR as similar to that of his namesake Julius Caesar who eventually seized power for himself after crossing the river Rubicon and capturing Rome; going on to take control of the Republic after years of campaining against the tribes of Gaul more than two thousand years earlier. Likewise, the new Caesar has campained against the myiad tribes of the East and will now cross the Colorado River and begin his unstoppable conqest of the West and the NCR. After suceeding in destroying one of their major fortifications, Fort Aradesh, Legion forces under the command of the Malpais Legate marched against the NCR garrison at Hoover dam in an attempt to take the strategic asset and River crossing. In what became known as the First Battle of Hooever Dam, the Malpais Legate initialy had the upper hand able to push the NCR defenders back and lead his forces over the dam. Lead elements of the NCR, including members of the 1st Recon battalion and NCR Ranger, excuted a tactical retreat west across the dam and into Boulder City, all the while using their prowess in marksman ship to kill the Legion officers (primarily centurions and Decanii). The Legate, unable to adapt to new strategies in combat, chose to order his Legionaries to push the rangers, not knowing the NCR had booby-trapped Boulder City, laying explosives along their line of retreat, drawing the Legion into a trap. When the Legion forces, crippling their offensive. The NCR forces then counter-attacked pushing back and eventually routing the Legion forces who fled back east over the Dam. Caesar, angered at the failure of his Legate, made an example of him to show that failure will not be tolerated even at the highest rank. The praetorian guard covered the Malpais Legate in pitch, set him on fire and cast him into the Grand Canyon. Now in 2281, Caesar mades his camp at Fortification Hill poised to take the Dam and subsquently New Vegas as his new capital. Caesar was playing his cards more cautiously this time and would not give the order for Lanius to attack the Damn until he can unearth the contents of the vault sealed beneath his base in the Mojave. He sadly died of his brain tumor before he could deal with anything leaving the job up to Caesar Magnus a self proclaimed heir.